Recent Mormon leaks on Fast Offering Audit

[ksfisher]

31 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Correct.   But I am curious to why a local Bishop would repeatedly pay rent for perpetually unemployed non-members.
Surely there is enough legitimate poverty to be helped.

Bishops are counseled to follow the Spirit in such situations.  While fast offering funds are primarily used to help members of the church, bishops have the lattitude to help nonmembers as well when prompted by the Spirit.  

[JLHPROF]

5 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Bishops are counseled to follow the Spirit in such situations.  While fast offering funds are primarily used to help members of the church, bishops have the lattitude to help nonmembers as well when prompted by the Spirit.

Hmmmm.....

Well, I hope the spirit had a good reason in these particular cases.

[ksfisher]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

Hmmmm.....

Well, I hope the spirit had a good reason in these particular cases.

It's hard to know unless you are there.

[rchorse]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

It is possible they helped with sod in order to get a house sold...or maybe a business started like a day care service.

I have been in two wards where rugs were replaced and walls painted in order to help sell the home, the first was because of filth and the second a home invasion where remaining family just didn't have the heart to stay.  Both cases might have been mostly or even all donations by members now I think about it.  The latter was a nonmember family who were friends with many in the ward.

Those cases would all still be pretty questionable uses of fast offering funds, in my opinion. I was bishop of a ward with a ton of welfare needs. We were always counseled at the stake and regional level not to pay mortgage payments or for home repairs / home improvements. Paying the rent or a mortgage for a month or two is one thing. Paying it for 6 months, a year, or more is just the bishop avoiding the unpleasant task of saying no and truly helping a family become self reliant. Fast offering funds are sacred, and I can not even imagine using the widow's mite to pay off a credit card or put in a yard. 

In my experience, it's far easier to write a check than to truly help someone. But writing a check isn't always helping. It's often just enabling bad financial behavior.

As it states in the handbook, church welfare is there to preserve life, not lifestyle. 

Member donations would be a different story, as members can do whatever they like with their money.

[Calm]

"Those cases would all still be pretty questionable uses of fast offering funds"

The lawns and the home cleanups?

Minor and moderate home repairs for seniors or the disabled on occasion so that they can stay in a home they have been in for years seems like a useful expense as long as they can stay on top of the day to day stuff.  I get refusing large stuff or constant requests if they are employable or if there is no social  reason to stay in the home and downsizing is the best answer and definitely if the improvement isn't necessary, but I can also see where sometimes a very generous gift was needed to prevent the individual or family to cope in a dark time or help them to fight despair.

If someone wanted to donated, but didn't want attention drawn to their efforts...could they say 'here is $9000 for the sod for Smiths' lawn, if you get the EQ, YM and YW to lay it out this weekend, then it will be ready when their grandkids move in while their parent is deployed overseas'.  They donate to fast offerings and the FO pays for that specifically and awkwardness is avoided by making it a ward project.

Anything contrary to policy with that?

Our neighbours around the corner in Calgary were helped by their Church with a major renovation making the house wheelchair accessible and putting in a master suite on the main floor and a back deck straight off the kitchen when the mother of the family lost her leg to "Necrotizing fasciitis".  This allowed the family of kids to have as little disruption to their lives as possible, kept them from losing their support system, allowed the husband to keep his job.  Would you see this as an appropriate use of welfare funds?  Or should the ward help out as individuals in your view and keep welfare funds for more typical things.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Calm

[rchorse]

Without having all the facts and the stewardship to use them, I can't say definitively what is or is not appropriate in a particular case. What I can say is that it says in the handbook that consumer debt should not be paid with fast offering funds. It also says that large expenditures should be approved by the stake president and/or presidency of the seventy, depending on the amount. If it gets approved, then I don't see a problem.

I can see minor home repairs for the elderly/disabled or something similar being appropriate at times. Regarding your example of the lawn, and a member not wanting to draw attention to their efforts, I don't really it should go through the fast offering fund. If a member wants to give a large amount to a family in need, there's certainly nothing wrong with that, or even with the bishop facilitating it.

But the money shouldn't go through the fast offering fund. The member could easily give a cashier's check or money order to the bishop, who could then use that to pay for the supplies. An even better solution would be for the bishop and/or ward council to work together with the member to get everything organized, and then the donor could pay the supplier directly.

The end goal is not for the bishop to swoop in and make it all better, but rather for the bishop to use the resources of the church to make it possible for the member to solve his/her own problems.

[stemelbow]

I don't like seeing this at all.  I'm not happy to think the Church is paying off people's credit card bills or bills to a concrete company.  I mean I know it sucks when you make mistakes in your finances and unforeseen things go wrong wherein you don't feel like you'll ever dig back out of the hole.  But that problem pales in comparison to the problems faced by so many in much poorer regions of this world.  I'm sad to say I don't find bishop's being caring by giving money to middle class people in suburban Utah.  I'd be much happier if the Fruit Heights ward gave all of it's money to the poor and suffering in Syria, or the DRC, or drug programs and professional help for the homeless or something. 

 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

I don't like seeing this at all.  I'm not happy to think the Church is paying off people's credit card bills or bills to a concrete company.  I mean I know it sucks when you make mistakes in your finances and unforeseen things go wrong wherein you don't feel like you'll ever dig back out of the hole.  But that problem pales in comparison to the problems faced by so many in much poorer regions of this world.  I'm sad to say I don't find bishop's being caring by giving money to middle class people in suburban Utah.  I'd be much happier if the Fruit Heights ward gave all of it's money to the poor and suffering in Syria, or the DRC, or drug programs and professional help for the homeless or something. 

 

But you have no clue what these costs were for.

For example, if all one saw was a several thousand paint and rug replacement bill for a nonmember family in a well off neighbourhood, it would seem quite inappropriate.

If you then learn it was to remove all visual and scent trace of the horrendous blood splatters from the attack which killed her husband so that a woman could re-enter her home without having to be confronted by such a sight, you might think of it differently.

Is it likely to be so extreme in each case?  No, but you might consider that without detail there is no way to judge, so perhaps better not to.  The Church auditing system has brought them to the attention of the SP; if it continues, they will get more involved.  Given the Church's policies, if inappropriate it will be dealt with.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Calm

[stemelbow]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

But you have no clue what these costs were for.

For example, if all one saw was a several thousand rug replacement bill for a nonmember family in a well off neighbourhood, it would seem quite inappropriate.

If you then learn it was to remove all visual and scent trace of the horrendous blood splatters from the attack which killed her husband so that a woman could re-enter her home without having to be confronted by such a sight, you might think of it differently.

I might.  But it's not likely that that type of thing happened multiple times in these locales.  More likely they were given money after they got in trouble financially and didn't want to hurt credit, or lose possessions, or have to claim bankruptcy or something. 

[Calm]

20 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I might.  But it's not likely that that type of thing happened multiple times in these locales.  More likely they were given money after they got in trouble financially and didn't want to hurt credit, or lose possessions, or have to claim bankruptcy or something. 

No, but suicides of a parent in one family and in another a child, large and small families suddenly without a mother or a father due to car accidents or heart attack, divorced mother with children and a exhusband who pays little of required child support moves in with parent only to have the parent die unexpectly and the house gone because of deal with bank, single men and women on their own unable to work because of extensive surgery to their knee and foot, childless seniors who have lived all their married life in their home who took to hoarding or taking in stray cats in their later years needing assistance, children born with severe defects requiring endless surgeries for the first three and five years of their lives, a family left without income and many debts due to a father abandoning them and the country and leaving the mother caring for many children including a beautiful daughter who must be taught to walk and talk again because of injuries to her brain...all these have happened in my well off ward in a three block radius in about a five, maybe 7 year time period.

You may not know what is happening in your own ward unless you are involved with the process, but from what I have seen my ward is a little unusual, but if one goes stake wide, not so much.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Calm

[stemelbow]

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

No, but suicides of a parent in one family and in another a child, large and small families suddenly without a mother or a father due to car accidents or heart attack, single men and women on their own unable to work because of extensive surgery to their knee and foot, childless seniors who have lived all their married life in their home who took to hoarding or taking in stray cats in their later years needing assistance, children born with severe defects requiring endless surgeries for the first three and five years of their lives, a family left without income and many debts due to a father abandoning them and the country and leaving the mother caring for many children including a beautiful daughter who must be taught to walk and talk again because of injuries to her brain...all these have happened in my well off ward in a three block radius in about a five year time period.

I grant something crazy and completely out of the ordinary could have happened that would perhaps make me feel better about this.  But, I still consider it more likely that I'd rather see the money go to something more useful, like programs for the homeless or poorer regions in the world.  That may just be me, Calm.  But I appreciate your point.  It's possible there was something more reasonable that caused this then I assume. 

Edited June 8, 2017 by stemelbow

[ksfisher]

24 minutes ago, Calm said:

But you have no clue what these costs were for.

For example, if all one saw was a several thousand paint and rug replacement bill for a nonmember family in a well off neighbourhood, it would seem quite inappropriate.

If you then learn it was to remove all visual and scent trace of the horrendous blood splatters from the attack which killed her husband so that a woman could re-enter her home without having to be confronted by such a sight, you might think of it differently.

Is it likely to be so extreme in each case?  No, but you might consider that without detail there is no way to judge, so perhaps better not to.  The Church auditing system has brought them to the attention of the SP; if it continues, they will get more involved.  Given the Church's policies, if inappropriate it will be dealt with.

Handbook 1 5.2.4 specifically prohibits paying off credit cards:

"5. Do not use fast offerings to pay members' consumer debt"

Given that any use of fast offering funds to make a credit card payment or pay off the credit card is a violation of church policy.

If a family or individual is unable to meet their monthly obligations because of credit card debt payments there are other options available to the bishop.  Food orders or other commodity assistance should probably be the first option, followed by assistance with utilities. 

[Calm]

A credit card might be required to be used for emergency purchases...such as being stranded somewhere and needing to get a car repaired after an accident, having to purchase overnight lodging, etc.  One could tell them to pay off so much per month and the Church will help through food orders, etc. but if a good percentage of that ends up being interest, in the long run less money would be spent getting the emergency debt off the credit card.

You simply don't know enough details of the welfare help in order to judge.  If these were the only odd ones in a whole stake over a year or two, iirc, (if there were more, why not leak them too?) would you still believe bishops were being careless and that this was likely just helping someone get out of debt?

[Tacenda]

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

A credit card might be required to be used for emergency purchases...such as being stranded somewhere and needing to get a car repaired after an accident, having to purchase overnight lodging, etc.  One could tell them to pay off so much per month and the Church will help through food orders, etc. but if a good percentage of that ends up being interest, in the long run less money would be spent getting the emergency debt off the credit card.

You simply don't know enough details of the welfare help in order to judge.  If these were the only odd ones in a whole stake over a year or two, iirc, (if there were more, why not leak them too?) would you still believe bishops were being careless and that this was likely just helping someone get out of debt?

My brother in law, was a ward clerk. He mentioned to my husband years ago that he got a little frustrated that the fast offerings were going to people that didn't need it. Families that had boats and even a cabin and received help. My husband's family are extremely frugal so I think that's probably why my BIL was taken aback. He's probably thinking they should sell their toys.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Tacenda

[Calm]

Stem, It seems really strange to me that you are so comfortable judging the bishop and those receiving this type of help as being a result of poor financial decision with absolutely no info on the situation, but when people make judgments about faith crisis and hard feelings towards the Church that is wrong and causes unnecessary suffering (going off of memory, my apologies if I have mixed you up with another).

Why should one be generous with trust in one area and not another?

[ksfisher]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

A credit card might be required to be used for emergency purchases...such as being stranded somewhere and needing to get a car repaired after an accident, having to purchase overnight lodging, etc.  One could tell them to pay off so much per month and the Church will help through food orders, etc. but if a good percentage of that ends up being interest, in the long run less money would be spent getting the emergency debt off the credit card.

You simply don't know enough details of the welfare help in order to judge.  If these were the only odd ones in a whole stake over a year or two, iirc, (if there were more, why not leak them too?) would you still believe bishops were being careless and that this was likely just helping someone get out of debt?

The instructions "Do not" given to the bishop in Handbook 1 would seem to override these other considerations. 

[Tacenda]

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

Stem, It seems really strange to me that you are so comfortable judging the bishop and those receiving this type of help as being a result of poor financial decision with absolutely no info on the situation, but when people make judgments about faith crisis and hard feelings towards the Church that is wrong and causes unnecessary suffering (going off of memory, my apologies if I have mixed you up with another).

Why should one be generous with trust in one area and not another?

We don't know about these families that received help. But like myself, we/I know families in our neighborhood. A family in my neighborhood received mortgage payments for over $2,000 a month on their large home for several months. Her husband was out of work for over a year. I even donated $500.00 to help them, in secret. They were very vocal about their hardship and would speak in F&T meetings and RS/PH meetings. I still have no big problem because I know they didn't want to uproot their family and move or downsize. But later on when the husband got work again, a year later they traveled to their son's mission area in North Korea, and finished their basement with a kitchen. I try not to judge but it hurts, because I can think of better things that my money could have gone to now. Still trying not to let it get under my skin, because it's silly. But see why Stemelbow says what he did, with helping the very poor. 

I didn't want to mention this personal story, but your post about judging situations without the whole story led me to it. I am a generous fast offering payer so I really hope the offerings are put to good use. I will continue to be, since we aren't tithepayers and I feel bad about that. For years we were and I hope that by paying in for years that it more than covers our use of the church, or my husband's use. 

[Calm]

1 minute ago, Tacenda said:

My brother in law, was a ward clerk. He mentioned to my husband years ago that he got a little frustrated that the fast offerings were going to people that didn't need it. Families that had boats and even a cabin and received help. My husband's family are extremely frugal so I think that's probably why my BIL was taken aback. He's probably thinking they should sell their toys.

I am sure it happens.  I have seen it happen.  I have made the same judgment about the bishop being too generous to the wrong people.  In one case I got to know those involved too well and realized the bishop had the choice of taking the ward completely out of the equation or abandoning the children in an abusive situation (because parents would cut off all ties if confronted).  The children had as best as could be in the situation support system.  The parents were very good at disguising their abusive behaviour and gaming the government system.  I wonder how often bishops are in similar hardplace/ rock situations where decisions are 'least harm to the innocents involved'.

Someone looking on who isn't privy to the details may miss the primary reason---the children who need protecting as much as possible---the bishop keeps the money coming...though as little as he can manage, less and less over time hoping he can wean her without another blowup, instructing members they are not to give money directly to her or the kids, etc.

 Identifying a specific case as wrong use of funds where we have no information save for what was paid for and what the amount is in my view highly inappropriate.  If you are privy to quite a lot and still feel the same way, then report it to the SP or SLC.

The Church oversight people obviously had concerns as well or there would have been no letters, but they left open the possibility that there were extenuating circumstances and appeared to be refraining from judgment until they had more info rather than jumping to conclusions.  I see that as Wisdom.

 

[Calm]

31 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

The instructions "Do not" given to the bishop in Handbook 1 would seem to override these other considerations. 

Iirc, the letters seem to indicate an awareness that at times rules could validly be broken.

If these payments were rare occurrences from a bishop who appeared frugal and prudent in all other things, is it not possible that at least some of these were appropriate exceptions?

I am in no way suggesting that bishops should be handing out checks right and left without being sure as much as is wise that this is the best option and there isn't another that is close but does not require church funds or inappropriate suffering.  

Edited June 8, 2017 by Calm

[ksfisher]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Iirc, the letters seem to indicate an awareness that at times rules could validly be broken.

The letters seemed to be written from a template.  When there is a "do not" in the handbook I just don't see any reason to do something different.  There is a lot of latitude given in other areas and multiple means of assisting people in need.  It just seems to me that when the First Presidency says "do not" that they really mean it.  I've been a stake auditor.  I've been a ward clerk and financial clerk.  I'm currently a counselor in a bishopric.  If a check to a credit card company was put in front of me to sign I wouldn't. 

[stemelbow]

42 minutes ago, Calm said:

Stem, It seems really strange to me that you are so comfortable judging the bishop and those receiving this type of help as being a result of poor financial decision with absolutely no info on the situation, but when people make judgments about faith crisis and hard feelings towards the Church that is wrong and causes unnecessary suffering (going off of memory, my apologies if I have mixed you up with another).

Why should one be generous with trust in one area and not another?

For what judgment I give out I'll be judged, I guess.  I get where you're coming from.  I suppose I've seen and been involved in too many situations like what Tacenda describes.  It sucks, because you don't want to judge and be harsh with people, of course.  But it's also frustrating because there really are people who really need help in the world.  When we help those who don't need it, well, I don't know what to say.  I don't know the situations involved with what is linked.  I'm just saying it seems more likely to be unnecessary then necessary.  As some have pointed out, they broke rules with the money to make it happen, apparently.  That makes it all sketchy. 

With that said, I maintain you make a good point.  I should be better at backing off on this type of stuff realizing people have their own lives and issues and I'm not privy to that.  But, as much as I try, I still think giving money to middle class folks in suburban Utah seems much less important then getting funding for the homeless or those who are in dire situations in various parts of the world. 

[Amulek]

1 hour ago, ksfisher said:

The letters seemed to be written from a template.  When there is a "do not" in the handbook I just don't see any reason to do something different.  There is a lot of latitude given in other areas and multiple means of assisting people in need.  It just seems to me that when the First Presidency says "do not" that they really mean it.  I've been a stake auditor.  I've been a ward clerk and financial clerk.  I'm currently a counselor in a bishopric.  If a check to a credit card company was put in front of me to sign I wouldn't. 

I’ve been a financial clerk a couple of times as well, and the Handbook doesn’t say that you are never allowed to make a check payable to a credit card company. It says you are not to use fast offerings to pay for members' consumer debt.

If someone were to pay an authorized fast offering expense with a credit card (say, e.g., putting someone up in a motel for the night) and then asked for the reimbursement check to be made payable directly to their credit card company instead of them personally, I wouldn’t have any problem with that so long as the documentation all matched up.

Would I expect the stake auditor to question that expense? Heck yes I would. But just because an  expenditure is questioned doesn’t mean that it was inappropriate.

 

[ksfisher]

16 minutes ago, Amulek said:

I’ve been a financial clerk a couple of times as well, and the Handbook doesn’t say that you are never allowed to make a check payable to a credit card company. It says you are not to use fast offerings to pay for members' consumer debt.

If someone were to pay an authorized fast offering expense with a credit card (say, e.g., putting someone up in a motel for the night) and then asked for the reimbursement check to be made payable directly to their credit card company instead of them personally, I wouldn’t have any problem with that so long as the documentation all matched up.

Would I expect the stake auditor to question that expense? Heck yes I would. But just because an  expenditure is questioned doesn’t mean that it was inappropriate.

 

You're correct.  I was imprecise in my terminology, although reimbursing the credit card company directly instead of the member seems really strange.  I would be much more inclined to recommend that the check be written directly to the member.  Let the member worry about paying the credit card company and not have the stake and headquarters worry about what the payment was for.  Much less complicated.

[Kenngo1969]

Just a general comment.

This is the problem with "leaks": There's no context.  As others have pointed out, all we have is the information that sum [x] went for expense [y].  We don't have any information about the circumstances underlying the expenditure.  Thanks to other leaks, we knew what a certain General Authority's stipend was for a certain period of time and that made a lot of us feel comfortable about passing judgment when we don't know anything about General Authority expenses in general ("The Church pays for everything, then they get this cushy salary on top of that!"  ) or in particular cases (are they supporting children, grandchildren, do they have other unusual expenses, and so on?

For all of MormonLeaks' professed desire to shine what its purveyors feel is needed "light," lack of needed context means we've gotten a heckuva lot more heat out of the deal than we've gotten light.

[Alan]

On ‎07‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 4:01 PM, mfbukowski said:

Only 6? It gets worse.

With bishopric and ward council meetings, the block, and then interviews after, that seems short.  Throw in a fireside, sometimes you get a 12 hour day, easy.  6 am to 6 pm, no problem 

Welcome to the club.

We don't hold bishopric or ward council meetings on a Sunday. If we did, it would be 10 hours at least!

Been bishop for 6 years now and have managed to cut out all non-essential meetings. Despite this, the constant flow of people with problems they want me to solve seems almost endless. I have found the trick is to refuse to solve their problems, for the most part. They usually know what they need to do.

With regard to welfare payments I was describing a situation that existed up until about 2 years ago. Around 18 months ago I instigated a bishops store cupboard in my office. On Fast Sunday's, in addition to collecting monetary contributions, we also receive food donations for the cupboard. This means that I am able to respond to an immediate need as required, and this has the added benefit of maintaining the link between the giver and the receiver. The recipient knows the food came from the people they sit with in sacrament meeting every week.

It also gives me breathing space to properly assess their request for significant financial assistance and to look at their situation in a more objective way. This involves helping them to prepare a workable budget (I usually ask the Ward Clerk, an accountant by profession, to do this with them), and to assign our Self Reliance specialist to assist them with other issues.

By doing this, the ward's welfare bill has reduced by around 90%.

Edited June 9, 2017 by Alan
Correcting grammar.